JP leaders from Jubilee Hills Assembly were probably hoping for a better outcome when they headed for a statue of Freedom fighter ChakaliAilammato garland it while marking her death anniversary on September 10, but they had another thing coming. The city police turned up, and decided it was time for a demonstration crackdown. J. Keerthi Reddy, the vice-president of the BJP Hyderabad Central District, and several others, mostly women, turned up at the Krishnakanth Park to garland Ailamma’s statue, but the cops would have none of it and detained and removed them from the area and locked them up for a while at a nearby religious place. The reason? There was no way the city police would let a BJP leader garland the statue before the local MLA from Jubilee Hills could do so. It was only after the MLA did the honours that BJP leaders and workers were freed so they could garland the statue.
TOLLYWOOD DRUG BUST TIMED PERFECTLY
There often is an unwritten code of brotherhood among uniformed servicemen. Something that became abundantly clear when the sudden revelation of people from the world of Telugu cinema being involvement in selling and buying drugs came out. This news broke just at the right time to take the heat off a former DGP’s son’s apparent involvement in a drunken brawl in a pub. If the furiously wagging tongues among the uniformed lot is anything to go by, the Tollywood drug bust could not have come at a better time, causing just enough brouhaha to take the heat off a former top cop’s son and his fisticuffs that left another young man with a bruised face.
CASINO KING SHOWN THE DOOR BY BJP
Did the BJP just manage to sidestep a potential landmine that could have turned it into a laughing stock and leave it open for some damaging ribbing by the Congress and the BRS? Several BJP leaders do think so following the last second cancellation of admitting ‘Casino King’ Chikoti Praveen who has earned some notoriety over the way he conducts his business and coming under the lens of the ED too. Praveen was apparently given the go-ahead to come to the party office and he did so in some style in a long procession with hundreds of followers only to be shown the door once he entered the BJP headquarters. A crestfallen and rightfully upset Praveen left the BJP office even as a damaging post-mortem by senior party leaders found that internal struggles for supremacy and an attempt to damage reputation of a couple of leaders was what led to the invitation but with Praveen’s membership prevented, several senior party leaders have apparently let out a collective sigh of relief.
CONGRESS FINDS AD SPACE ALREADY SOLD OUT
Senior Congress leader and former MP V. Hanumantha Rao is unhappy. He has a grouse that just before the CWC meeting in Hyderabad and the party’s public meeting at Tukkugud on the outskirts, the Congress could not find any advertising space on any Metro Rail pillars or anywhere else for that matter. His inquiries revealed that the BRS already bought up all the advertising space with a plan to turn the city pink when Congress leaders like him wanted his party’s tricoloured flag to be seen everywhere. Hanumantha Rao may complain all he wants that the whole thing is a BRS conspiracy, but for now in the pink vs tricolour battle, the former appears to have won the day.
TD LEADERS FLEE FOR COOLER CLIMES WHILE NAIDU COOLS IN JAIL
While TD chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu spends time in the Rajahmundry Central Jail in the Skill Development Corporation scam, several of his party leaders and corporators of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation left for a fortnight long tour of north Indian cities including Srinagar and Shimla ostensibly to get some tips on civic affairs from leaders in those cities. Possibly the TD corporators believed that the political heat in Andhra Pradesh was too hot to bear for them so off they went on the study trip. Some even posted pictures of themselves posing at picturesque spots from the cool climes they visited leading to some heartburn among others and disapproval from senior TD leaders who wanted to know how they could go on such trips when their supreme leader was in prison.
JR NTR STAYS MUM ON NAIDU ARREST
For someone who’s on-screen personas are never short of words, the silence of actor Junior NTR from the Nandamuri clan, over TD president N. Chandrababu Naidu’s arrest, has left several of his fans, and TD leaders wondering what is up in the family. Are there differences within on how the clan responds to Naidu’s arrest? Or does the actor want to stay away from this purely for professional reasons and stay focused on his films and not let politics interfere with the great run onscreen he currently enjoys? This question has divided his fan base with some taking one side, and some others taking the other side. Irrespective of why Junior NTR chose to remain silent, the whispers about all being not well within the large Nandamuri family are expected to continue for some more time.
